CHICAGO, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama on Wednesday bemoaned the 'irrational despair' afflicting tumbling stock markets, and said President George W. Bush was too weak to fix the crisis.

Obama played off a famous remark that 1990s asset values were subject to 'irrational exuberance' by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, to sum up the depths to which today's markets have stooped.

'In the same way that I think Greenspan, the former Fed chairman, talked about irrational exuberance, we now have irrational despair,' Obama said, when asked why a 700 billion dollar US Wall Street bailout signed last week had failed to stem huge stock market losses.

'Trust is broken down in our financial institutions,' Obama told ABC World News Tonight. 'Banks are afraid to lend to each other. They're afraid to lend to companies that have great balance sheets and have done everything right.'

Obama compared Bush's leadership through the current crisis unfavorably to that of revered Democratic president Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s banking shock.

'I do think that the administration is hampered by the fact that people don't have a lot of confidence in the president,' he said.

'I mean, if you think about previous crises -- you know, FDR. There were a whole bunch of programs that he tried that didn't work.

'But what he was able to provide to people was a sense that somebody's in charge and we're going to get through this.'

Obama tried out his own brand of Rooseveltian rhetoric on Wednesday, telling Americans that 'there are better days ahead' as he tried to buck up the national mood four weeks from election day.

'I know that many of you are anxious about the future. But this isn't a time for fear or panic. This is a time for resolve and leadership,' Obama said at a rally in midwestern Indiana, vowing the United States would steer its way out of the crisis.

The Democratic nominee spoke as the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped another 189.96 points (2.01) percent to close at 9,257.15, its sixth consecutive session in the red.